Mapping the Flow of International Trade

According the UN’s Comtrade database, the global market for imported goods totaled $15.6 trillion in 2015. This map shows where those goods came from and where they went, each dot representing $1 billion in value. Select a country to see the flow of goods in and out of that country.

With the election of Donald Trump, international trade is suddenly at the top of the U.S. agenda. And it occurred to me, I actually have very little idea what the big picture of foreign trade looks like. And there are surprisingly few resources on the web. So, I gathered up the data via the U.N. Comtrade API and put it together in this map (see how this map was made).

What does this map tell us?

I can only speak for myself, but what jumps out most to me is how concentrated the flows are in just three countries: the U.S., China, and Germany. Nearly half of all goods traded around the world go through one of these three countries, either exported to or imported from.

Germany has the largest economy in the EU, but not by much. The GDP’s of the UK and France are both about 25% smaller than Germany. But it’s clear by looking at the map that Germany dominates EU trade. Its total exports are nearly on a par with the US, $1.3 trillion vs $1.5 trillion. Of the 28 EU member states, Germany is the #1 exporter to 17.

What strikes me about the United States is how balanced its trade is with Canada and Mexico. To hear some of the recent rhetoric about Mexico, you would think the trade is completely one-sided — goods flowing in, money flowing out. In reality, America’s imports and exports with Mexico are roughly equal ($240 billion and $294 billion). The same is true of Canada ($312 billion and $347 billion).

With total imports of $1.9 trillion and total exports of $2.1 trillion, China holds the largest share of foreign trade. I don’t know whether China’s trade policies are good or bad for the rest of the world. But visually, it sure does look like an octopus with its tentacles wrapped around the Earth.

Credit:

International trade flows from U.N. Comtrade. The categories of goods shown are derived from the Harmonized Coding System. For readability purposes, I reduced the 15 top level categories down to 9 categories by [somewhat arbitrarily] grouping similar items together.

I'm an NYC-based entrepreneur (my newest project: Blueshift) and adjunct instructor at UPenn. I'm fascinated by data visualization and the ways that data is transforming our understanding of the world. I spend a lot of time with my face buried in Excel, and when I find something interesting I write about it here and also as a Guardian Cities and Huffington Post contributor.More about my background

This is great, and works intuitively on a touch-based device like my iPad. Do desktop users get controls for rotation and tilting?

http://metrocosm.com Max Galka

Glad to hear. A few Samsung Note users have complained of it being too sensitive, but seems to work well on Apple devices. On desktop, left mouse button = rotate, right button = pan, middle button (two fingers on touchpad / both buttons together) = zoom.

André Knol

Hi Max,
Great overview. I’m a big fan of all your work!
Is it possible to show ownly Food/Vegetable/Animal and Mineral/Chemical?

Best,
André Knol
Innomics

http://metrocosm.com Max Galka

Thanks Andre. Actually, it would be interesting to see it separately by category. May not be difficult to put through. I will take a look…

Carmen Elida Mason Malo

Yes! It would be really helpful to be able to isolate each category. I’ll keep my eyes peeled for any possible updates…

Korakys

The Northwest Passage opening up is going to be good for European-East Asian trade.

Meanwhile a single blue dot crosses Antarctica every three seconds.

http://metrocosm.com Max Galka

Between new trade routes, population shifts, and rising anti-globalization sentiment I imagine this picture could look very different in a decade or two.

Sabienne

Max, you remain the coolest guy on the internet.

http://metrocosm.com Max Galka

You get an upvote 🙂

Mireia

I agree with you!

M_arci

“It’s total exports are…”
should be ITS total exports are….sorry but I cannot overlook such errors, especially if the writer is an English native

http://metrocosm.com Max Galka

Even English natives are not immune to typos. Thanks for pointing it out.

aldobaldoidd

Thanks to the cheap Euro and to the salaries compression Germany destroyed a significant part of the Eurozone industry (25% in Italy and much in Spain and France) and is the real bad player, not China or Mexico. When you purchase a good, think about it.
Additionally to the currency manipulation, the German merchantilism – that does not advantage the population – exports deflation..

http://erskinomics.com Alex E

Dear Max, very interesting and innovative. It would be interesting too to do the same exercise for trade in services and its components (which I think UN COMTRADE now covers). It would help show how little services trade integration has been achieved! Best wishes, Alex

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